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public health
Report Details How Trump Did Big Tobacco’s Bidding on Flavored Vapes Despite Risk to Kids
"Trump could not care less about the health consequences and costs of giving teenagers access to addictive flavored poison if it means his tobacco industry donors can make record profits," said one public health advocate.
May 13, 2026
The resignation of a pair of top health officials in the Trump administration this week has brought to light efforts by the president to help Big Tobacco executives and lobbyists sell addictive flavored e-cigarettes that could be marketed to children.
On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new guidance allowing cigarette makers to begin marketing and selling fruit- and candy-flavored vape products on store shelves, which were banned under previous administrations due to evidence that they were driving youth vaping.
The policy was enacted despite the strong opposition of then-FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who resigned on Tuesday, reportedly because he could not in good conscience support it.
Makary's resignation was followed by the departure of Rich Danker, the chief spokesperson for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who similarly warned that the policy "would appeal to children and expose them to nicotine addiction, lung damage, and higher risk of cancer" in a letter addressed to Trump on Wednesday.
Danker did not blame Trump for the policy in his letter; instead, he attributed it to "senior HHS officials in the immediate office of the secretary."
This is despite the fact that The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump had personally berated Makary over his hesitation to enact the policy and had signed off on a plan to fire him.
A New York Times report on Wednesday confirms the extent of Trump's direct involvement in strong-arming the FDA into enacting the policy. It found that he pressured higher-ups in HHS to move the policy forward amid a tongue-lashing from tobacco industry lobbyists and executives angry that they could not get in on the highly profitable sale of fruit- and candy-flavored vapes. Despite being illegal and mostly imported to the US from China, these vapes make up about 60% of the total e-cigarette market.
Trump, who ran in 2024 on a pledge to "save vaping" as part of an effort to appeal to young voters, has raked in huge sums of money from the tobacco industry. According to data from OpenSecrets, his inaugural committee took over $3 million from vaping special interests, including $1.25 million from the Vapor Technology Association, and $1 million apiece from Altria and Breeze Smoke.
Altria, which owns Marlboro maker Philip Morris, and Reynolds American, which owns Lucky Strike and Camel, have also offered donations to Trump's $400 million White House ballroom project. Reynolds, the biggest producer of menthol cigarettes, also gave $10 million to the super PAC backing Trump in 2024.
According to The New York Times, executives for Altria and Reynolds were turning the screws on Trump over lunch at his golf club in Jupiter, Florida, in early May because they were "unhappy with the way the Food and Drug Administration was regulating their industry."
Trump interrupted the conversation to call up RFK Jr. and Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and complained to them about the FDA's regulation of e-cigarettes.
Within a week, the new policy had been enacted, and its leading opponent, Makary, was gone. He has since been replaced by Kyle Diamantas, whom the healthcare advocacy group Protect Our Care described as "a 30-something lawyer whose qualifications for such a critical public health role seem to begin and end at being Donald Trump Jr.’s 'hunting buddy.'”
"Donald Trump’s fury at FDA head Makary was motivated by gross political opportunism and fat checks from the big vape industry," said Jeremy Funk, the deputy director of Protect Our Care's Public Health Watch team. "Trump could not care less about the health consequences and costs of giving teenagers access to addictive flavored poison if it means his tobacco industry donors can make record profits."
While youth vaping is at a 10-year low, about 1.6 million middle and high school students were estimated to use vape products in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey. Nearly 90% of them said they used fruit and candy-flavored vapes.
Dr. Jerome Adams, a physician and professor at Purdue University, said in a post on social media that the rise of vaping has fueled a rebound in nicotine usage among college-aged adults.
"Youth combustible cigarette smoking was already at an all-time low and consistently dropping before vaping came on the scene. There is literally no reason to believe that the majority of young people who are now vaping would have otherwise been smoking combustible cigarettes," he said. "Amongst college-age and young adults, nicotine use is going back up to incredibly high rates—largely due to vaping."
The new policy enacted by the FDA has so far only authorized the sale of flavored products by one company, the Los Angeles-based Glas Inc., which will be allowed to sell vapes in flavors like mango and blueberry under names like "Gold" and "Sapphire."
The FDA sought to assuage fears of underage use by pointing to the Glas' digital age-verification system, which requires the product to be connected to the Bluetooth of a phone owned by a person over the age of 21. However, it is expected that, especially amid industry pressure, more companies will have their products approved soon.
Kayla Hancock, director of Protect Our Care’s Public Health Project, said that while Makary had a "terrible record" as FDA commissioner, having taken actions that slowed vaccine development and launched dubious, politically charged "reviews" of abortion pills long found to be safe, "apparently, it wasn’t terrible enough for Donald Trump."
"Hesitating to approve flavored vapes and not put American teens on a fast-track to lifelong addiction to harmful nicotine products is the bare minimum anyone could hope for from the Trump FDA," she said. "But that was a bridge too far for Donald Trump, who sees young people as disposable political pawns that he can appeal to with poison while lining the pockets of his big vape donors."
She said the ouster of Makary and his replacement with Diamantas "all but guarantees an FDA further consumed by chaos and driven by the wish lists of special interests that want profits put before public health."
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'Prepared to Fight': Sanders Endorses NJ Medicare for All Advocate Dr. Adam Hamawy for Congress
"As a physician he understands firsthand that our current healthcare system is broken, that healthcare is a human right, and that we must pass Medicare for All."
May 04, 2026
US Sen. Bernie Sanders over the weekend endorsed New Jersey surgeon Dr. Adam Hamawy for Congress, citing the Democratic candidate's long record of saving lives in humanitarian disasters from 9/11 to Israel's US-backed destruction of Gaza, as well as his support for Medicare for All and willingness to take on the billionaire class.
“Dr. Adam Hamawy has saved lives with great courage and honor—he did it as a 9/11 first responder, as a combat trauma surgeon in Iraq, as a volunteer in hospitals under bombardment in Gaza, and in emergency rooms in New Jersey," Sanders (I-Vt.) said on social media.
"As a physician he understands firsthand that our current healthcare system is broken, that healthcare is a human right, and that we must pass Medicare for All," the senator continued. "Dr. Hamawy is prepared to fight for real campaign finance reform to stop billionaires from buying elections, and will not waste billions of taxpayer dollars on endless and illegal wars."
"Status quo politics is not working," Sanders added. "We need bold leaders like Dr. Hamawy in Congress. I am proud to endorse him and look forward to working with him after he is elected.”
Hamawy said he was "excited" by Sanders' endorsement.
"I am running to fund healthcare, not bombs, to abolish ICE, and to unrig our economy," he said. "In Congress, I'll fight right alongside Bernie to defeat fascism and deliver for working people."
"As a doctor, I am proud to fight alongside him for Medicare for All," Hamawy added. "As a veteran, I am grateful for his advocacy for our community and his leadership in fighting against endless wars. I am deeply honored to have earned his support.“
Hamawy, the son of immigrants from Egypt, is running for New Jersey's 12th Congressional District seat, currently held by retiring Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman. He grew up in Old Bridge Township and is a graduate of Rutgers University and what is now Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
The 46-year-old physician joined the United States Army Medical Corps and served during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as a combat trauma surgeon. Hamawy—whose highest rank was lieutenant colonel—became nationally known after saving the life of then-Army helicopter pilot and current US Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq in 2004. Duckworth later credited him with preventing her from becoming a triple amputee.
After leaving the Army, Hamawy volunteered in emergency and war zones including after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, during the Syrian Civil War, and the ongoing Gaza genocide—when he joined an international medical mission and performed roughly 120 surgeries, many on children wounded in Israeli attacks.
Hamawy and the other doctors on the team became trapped inside Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Duckworth urged then-US President Joe Biden to secure the doctors' evacuation. According to reporting, Hamawy was one of three US doctors who refused to be evacuated from Gaza until non-American members of his medical team could also leave.
After returning stateside, Hamawy testified about conditions in Gaza, describing catastrophic shortages of medicine and other vital equipment and the high mortality rates among severely wounded civilians.
In addition to Sanders, Hamawy is endorsed by Duckworth, Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and progressive groups including Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, Veterans for Responsible Leadership, Council on American-Islamic Relations Action, and Track AIPAC.
While some pro-Palestine congressional incumbents and candidates including Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian American from Illinois, have been defeated amid a torrent of funding from groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, others have won their races in recent elections, including Omar and Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), and Analilia Mejia (D-NJ), who was sworn into office last month.
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From 'Clean Eating' to Clean Rules: What Progressives Can Collaborate On With MAHA
The question isn’t whether the two groups share a few habits; it’s whether they can work together to build the political muscle needed to implement regulations that make everyone safer.
May 04, 2026
Eat real food. Buy organic. Filter your water.
Scroll through Instagram and you’ll find no shortage of such advice from the “MAHA girls,”—young women drawn to the Make America Healthy Again movement. If you have been accustomed to MAHA through its most famous champion—Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who helped popularize the slogan—#MAHA girls show a wider and growing allure of MAHA and their messages.
It’s tempting for progressives to either mock them or tune out, especially given their association with the current administration. But that would be a mistake. Not because MAHA has the right solutions—it often doesn’t—but because it names a real problem: Our modern lives are saturated with industrial contaminants from which individual consumer hacks can’t protect us.
As a sociologist who studies food systems, I recognize the mix of anxiety and practicality driving this trend. The MAHA movement’s concerns overlap with long-standing environmental and public health priorities championed by progressives. But the question isn’t whether these groups share a few “clean” habits; it’s whether they can work together to build the political muscle needed to implement regulations that make everyone safer.
Rather than rejecting MAHA’s sentiments, progressives need to listen carefully to the experiences that drive this movement, while being mindful of the limits of individual actions.
Consider glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. There has been ongoing debate over its potential consequences. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer. And on April 27, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in Monsanto v. Durnell. The MAHA movement is watching the case closely and held a protest outside the Supreme Court.
Environmental and public health advocates have warned about these chemicals for decades. On this point, MAHA advocates and progressive environmentalists are aligned: Both want glyphosate out of the food system.
Or take fermented foods. My book, Fermenting for the Future, traces the decline of fermentation practices in industrial societies and the resulting loss of gut microbial diversity. Our guts are often described as the “industrial microbiota”—but thanks to our modern food system, they are becoming a less diverse ecosystem linked to a rise in chronic conditions. That’s because industrial food systems don’t just add questionable additives; they also reshape “traditional” foods that are standardized, pasteurized, or only nominally fermented—optimized for cost and convenience.
Here, too, MAHA supporters often agree. They champion fermented foods such as kimchi and miso and emphasize gut health. These concerns have even entered mainstream policy, as seen in the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which highlighted gut health and fermented foods.
Usually, MAHA’s intellectual roots are traced simply to MAGA (Make America Great Again). But its intellectual roots run deeper: health freedom movements, environmentalism, and women’s health activism—many of which have progressive roots.
But there are key differences and they matter.
First, MAHA discourse is marked by a strong current of purism: the idea that we can purify our bodies, homes, and communities if we shop correctly and avoid the “bad” stuff. Purism often draws a moral boundary between the “pure” and the “impure.” Historically, such thinking can slide from labeling chemicals as “impure” to applying the same labels to people—feeding stigma, exclusion, and conspiracy thinking.
Purism also rests on an illusion. We live in a world saturated with contaminants—from microplastics to forever chemicals—such that we are, in a sense, born “pre-polluted.” To try to shield ourselves individually by careful shopping choices is impossible and creates a sense of false security.
Second, the movement is deeply shaped by healthism—an idea that puts most of the responsibility for health on personal behavior. If you feel unwell, the MAHA approach is to take personal steps: Monitor your glucose, eliminate processed foods, buy organic. Structural factors—regulation, labor conditions, environmental exposure—fade into the background.
This is a paradox. While MAHA advocates sometimes call for tighter regulation of certain substances, their overall mindset often distrusts government and scientists, which limits their willingness for necessary systemic reforms and support for experts.
Healthism also obscures inequality. The capacity to “choose health” is unevenly distributed. A single mother juggling multiple precarious jobs likely lacks both the time to research good supplements and the income to purchase organic foods. Without structural changes in how food is produced, regulated, and distributed, those with fewer resources will continue to bear higher burdens—and then be blamed for their circumstances.
Despite these differences, the underlying overlap to progressive causes offers a window of opportunity. Many of the MAHA girls on Instagram are responding to real personal experiences that speak to larger issues: chronic symptoms without clear diagnoses, medical visits that feel rushed or dismissive. Conditions such as allergies, eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, and diabetes have become prevalent, and the fear that today’s generation may fare worse than their parents cannot be waved away as mere hyperbole.
Rather than rejecting MAHA’s sentiments, progressives need to listen carefully to the experiences that drive this movement, while being mindful of the limits of individual actions. If we are serious about making Americans—and the environments we inhabit—healthier, we can’t rely on individual choices alone.
We should meet this moment with “clean rules,” not just clean eating. Tackling bad food requires sustained advocacy for better regulations that foremostly consider the existing and potential harms to the most socioeconomically marginalized, such as farm laborers, fenceline communities, and the poor. And better food governance requires more support for scientists and public agencies that help to build a solid knowledge base for regulations and for them to be fully enforced.
“Clean” also means addressing conflict of interests in appointment of officials, in scientific data gathering, and in the endorsement of “solutions” including commercial products. Those reforms would help everyone—including the people with the least time and money to manage risk on their own.
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